WASHINGTON (CNS) -- In an effort to block posthumous rebaptisms by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Catholic dioceses throughout the world have been directed by the Vatican not to give information in parish registers to the Mormons' Genealogical Society of Utah.

An April 5 letter from the Vatican Congregation for Clergy, obtained by Catholic News Service in late April, asks episcopal conferences to direct all bishops to keep the Latter-day Saints from microfilming and digitizing information contained in those registers.

The order came in light of "grave reservations" expressed in a Jan. 29 letter from the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the clergy congregation's letter said.

Father James Massa, executive director of the U.S. bishops' Secretariat of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, said the step was taken to prevent the Latter-day Saints from using records -- such as baptismal documentation -- to posthumously baptize by proxy the ancestors of church members.

Posthumous baptisms by proxy have been a common practice for the Latter-day Saints -- commonly known as Mormons -- for more than a century, allowing the church's faithful to have their ancestors baptized into their faith so they may be united in the afterlife, said Mike Otterson, a spokesman in the church's Salt Lake City headquarters.

In a telephone interview with CNS May 1, Otterson said he wanted a chance to review the contents of the letter before commenting on how it will affect the Mormons' relationship with the Catholic Church.

"This dicastery is bringing this matter to the attention of the various conferences of bishops," the letter reads. "The congregation requests that the conference notifies each diocesan bishop in order to ensure that such a detrimental practice is not permitted in his territory, due to the confidentiality of the faithful and so as not to cooperate with the erroneous practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."

The letter is dated 10 days before Pope Benedict XVI's April 15-20 U.S. visit, during which he presided over an ecumenical prayer service attended by two Mormon leaders. It marked the first time Mormons had participated in a papal prayer service.

Father Massa said he could see how the policy stated in the letter could strain relations between the Catholic Church and the Latter-day Saints.

"It certainly has that potential," he said. "But I would also say that the purpose of interreligious dialogue is not to only identify agreements, but also to understand our differences. As Catholics, we have to make very clear to them their practice of so-called rebaptism is unacceptable from the standpoint of Catholic truth."

The Catholic Church will eventually open a dialogue with the Mormons about the rebaptism issue, Father Massa said, "but we are at the beginning of the beginning of a new relationship with the LDS. The first step in any dialogue is to establish trust and to seek friendship."

The two faiths share intrinsic viewpoints on key issues the United States is facing, particularly the pro-life position on abortion and an opposition to same-sex marriage.

However, theological differences have cropped up between Mormons and Catholics in the past.

In 2001 the Vatican's doctrinal congregation issued a ruling that baptism conferred by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints cannot be considered a valid Christian baptism, thus requiring converts from that religion to Catholicism to receive a Catholic baptism.

"We don't have an issue with the fact that the Catholic Church doesn't recognize our baptisms, because we don't recognize theirs," Otterson said. "It's a difference of belief."

When issuing its 2001 ruling, the Vatican said that even though the Mormon baptismal rite refers to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the church's beliefs about the identity of the three persons are so different from Catholic and mainline Christian belief that the rite cannot be regarded as a Christian baptism.

Latter-day Saints regard Jesus and the Holy Spirit as children of the Father and the Heavenly Mother. They believe that baptism was instituted by the Father, not Christ, and that it goes back to Adam and Eve.

Msgr. J. Terrence Fitzgerald -- vicar general of the Diocese of Salt Lake City -- said he didn't understand why the Latter-day Saints church was singled out in this latest Vatican policy regarding parish records.

"We have a policy not to give out baptismal records to anyone unless they are entitled to have them," Msgr. Fitzgerald said of his diocese. "That isn't just for the Church of the Latter-day Saints. That is for all groups."

Though he said the Salt Lake City Diocese has enjoyed a long-standing dialogue with the Latter-day Saints, Msgr. Fitzgerald said the diocese does not support giving the Mormons names for the sake of rebaptism.

Mormons have been criticized by several other faiths -- perhaps most passionately by the Jews -- for the church's practice of posthumous baptism.

Members of the Latter-day Saints believe baptizing their ancestors by proxy gives the dead an opportunity to embrace the faith in the afterlife. The actual baptism-by-proxy ceremony occurs in a Mormon temple, and is intended to wash sins away for the commencement of church membership.

Jewish leaders have called the practice arrogant and said it is disrespectful to the dead, especially Holocaust victims.

"Baptism by proxy is a fundamentally important doctrine of the Latter-day Saints," Otterson said. "We have cooperative relationships with churches, governments -- both state and national -- going back to the last century. Our practice of negotiating for records and making them available for genealogical research is very well known."

Father Massa said he is not aware of aggressive attempts to obtain baptismal records at Catholic parishes in any of the U.S. dioceses.

He also said the Catholic Church will continue to reach out to the Mormons and carry on the efforts of understanding that have already begun, especially in Salt Lake City.

"Profound theological differences are not an excuse for avoiding dialogue, but a reason for pursuing dialogue," Father Massa said.

(Well, I suppose the next step would be to go into Catholic cemetaries, dig up the corpses, dunk them by immersion, & then return them...that way, they won't necessarily "miss out" on Mormon "salvation" just because they had the "misfortune" to belong to a "sect" that Joseph Smith said... ...had 100% creeds that were supposedly an "abomination" to whatever entity appeared to them... ...had "professors" who were supposedly 100% "corrupt")

Giving LDS the records (knowing that the LDS will then use them for "posthumous baptisms") might be seen as recognising the legitimacy said "posthumous baptisms". In fact, the Church considers any LDS "baptism" to be invalid, spurious, null-and-void, utterly without effect ...

10
posted on 05/02/2008 12:19:26 PM PDT
by ArrogantBustard
(Western Civilization is Aborting, Buggering, and Contracepting itself out of existence.)

Arrrggghh, this will impact genealogists so much. SLC has the best records in the world; people come from Germany to look up German records which they cannot access in their own countries. And since the majority of Europeans are/ have been Catholic, it has been just wonderful to have access to them.

Let’s say I created a ceremony to make all their ancestors gay. Now, the fact that they don’t believe in my ceremony doesn’t change the fact that my doing so is disrespectful to their grandparents and the choices he/she made while alive. It’s arrogant of me to assume that anyone but myself wants it and that I have any sort of power to do so.

It doesn’t matter if I can smile and say...”But your grandpa can still choose not to accept homosexuality up in heaven. This just gives him the opportunity to be gay since he didn’t know about it in this life.”

It wouldn’t be a homo vs. hetero argument at all...it’s a simple case of respect for someone’s completed life.

18
posted on 05/02/2008 12:45:32 PM PDT
by colorcountry
(To anger a conservative, lie to him. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)

Do LDS believe that the souls of the unbaptised-LDS dead are in hell? Do they believe that picking a name out of a book and “performing” a baptism on the name of a dead person moves their soul from hell to heaven? Not being sarcastic, I just really have no idea what this is supposed to accomplish.

19
posted on 05/02/2008 12:48:34 PM PDT
by workerbee
(Ladies do not start fights, but they can finish them.)

Mormons believe in three levels of heaven. ALL people (universal salvation) get to one of the levels. There are required ordinances that one must perform in order to move to a higher Kingdoms. Without a Mormon baptism, one is relegated to the lower kingdom, never having a chance to dwell with God in the highest Kingdom or Christ who is a separate personage.

20
posted on 05/02/2008 12:53:19 PM PDT
by colorcountry
(To anger a conservative, lie to him. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)

“Lets say I created a ceremony to make all their ancestors gay. Now, the fact that they dont believe in my ceremony doesnt change the fact that my doing so is disrespectful to their grandparents and the choices he/she made while alive. Its arrogant of me to assume that anyone but myself wants it and that I have any sort of power to do so.”

Excellent point!

Let’s go farther.

Let’s actually create a special Unsealing Ceremony for the Dead.

By Proxy Unsealing, (any dead) Mormon wife can be Unsealed
from her god husband, if she so chooses, for any reason
she chooses. Any living Mormon or non-Mormon can be a proxy
for any dead Mormon wife. It would be a Liberation to
nullify any chance that her previous husband wouldn’t call
her by her special name and resurrect her.

Let’s also create a Celestial Demotion Ceremony. By participating
in this ceremony, you can be a proxy for any Mormon who has died.
By standing in for them, you will renounce every Temple
Ceremony, Mission Trip, Tithe, Marriage Sealing, etc.

The previous works they thought would earn them a spot above
everyone else - and their “godship of their own planet -
will now be nullified.

Surely, they couldn’t get upset about this, could they?
And perhaps they could then begin to realize how offensive
it is when they purport to convert people who have died
believing in a faith already.

I don’t know why it really matters. I wouldn’t embrace it and find it crazy, but since I have a Mormon sister, if she outlives me it wouldn’t surprise me if she had me baptized posthumously. I don’t think I will care, and I don’t think it would affect my salvation.

susie

22
posted on 05/02/2008 1:00:20 PM PDT
by brytlea
(amnesty--an act of clemency by an authority by which pardon is granted esp. to a group of individual)

This is too bad. I’m a genealogy-loving Catholic who spends many hours going over records at LDS institutions. Since I do not believe in post-death baptism, my LDS friends who will do so to me after I pass means NOTHING to me. Have at it if it makes you happy.

But to make so many of these records unavailable to those who, for free, go to genealogy centers at LDS facilities is short-sighted.

23
posted on 05/02/2008 1:00:23 PM PDT
by Andyman
(The truth shall make you freep.)

I think it’s meaningless as well, but I can also see why people don’t like it.

It takes an unmitigated amount of gall to take it on yourself to do something like that, that you believe is real, for (or to) someone you don’t know without their or their relatives knowledge or consent.

25
posted on 05/02/2008 1:06:46 PM PDT
by metmom
(Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)

I think it’s mostly that it inflates the Mormons’ statistics. Obviously, no dead person can be baptized by anybody of any church, and such “baptism” would have no effect. But then that person is counted as a Mormon (by the Mormons, of course).

Posthumous baptisms by proxy have been a common practice for the Latter-day Saints -- commonly known as Mormons -- for more than a century, allowing the church's faithful to have their ancestors baptized into their faith so they may be united in the afterlife...

Question...If God honors the posthumous "baptisms", why would Catholics want to oppose God. If he does not honor these "baptisms", why should Catholics care what Mormons do?

30
posted on 05/02/2008 1:21:57 PM PDT
by Onelifetogive
(This is an Obama-nation!)

FWIW, the names of the "three levels of heaven" that colorcountry named in her response are the "Telestial", the "Terrestrial", and the "Celestial" Kingdoms. Mormon FReeper restornu recently used a graphic in one of her posts that explains the types of persons that occupy the first two realms. It's the (dead) members of these first two groups that LDS members are "proxy baptised" for:

31
posted on 05/02/2008 1:22:12 PM PDT
by Alex Murphy
("Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?" -- Galatians 4:16)

It doesn’t affect me in any way. I don’t believe it is real therefore it holds no power in my mind. I can see the rationale for it but it is 100% worldly. I can see the new Emergent Church doing it because it would appeal to the spiritually weak who would be more at ease if their dead relatives got a chance to escape Hell. I know people who resist their own Salvation because they don’t want to deal with daddy dying unSaved. “Shoot fire, we’ll just wish daddy into Heaven then”.

I’m not saying Mormons are weak but that weak people may be drawn to the practice.

32
posted on 05/02/2008 1:22:32 PM PDT
by AppyPappy
(If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem.)

What the Mormons do is what the Mormons do, they perform a valuable service by preserving these records and they do it for NADA.

Actually, they're not exactly doing it for nothing. They're providing a service in exchange for your lists of relatives, for whom they will later be baptized in proxy to make posthumous Mormons out of them (if they choose to accept it in Heaven, etc etc etc). Baptizing themselves for your dead relatives is a type of missionary work for the LDS.

If you don't want your great-aunt Martha to be placed on any LDS posthumous mailing lists, don't accept any free services from them.

34
posted on 05/02/2008 1:27:46 PM PDT
by Alex Murphy
("Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?" -- Galatians 4:16)

By Proxy Unsealing, (any dead) Mormon wife can be Unsealed from her god husband, if she so chooses, for any reason she chooses. Any living Mormon or non-Mormon can be a proxy for any dead Mormon wife. It would be a Liberation to nullify any chance that her previous husband wouldnt call her by her special name and resurrect her. Teach those arrogant god-husbands! Lets strip away their Celestial Polygamy (which the oLDS teaches still).

A Humorous, but still apt, parallel to how Mormons attempt to "unCatholicize" deceased Catholics.

Lets also create a Celestial Demotion Ceremony. By participating in this ceremony, you can be a proxy for any Mormon who has died. By standing in for them, you will renounce every Temple Ceremony, Mission Trip, Tithe, Marriage Sealing, etc. The previous works they thought would earn them a spot above everyone else - and their godship of their own planet - will now be nullified.

Also funny but simultaneously utterly sad and full of Lamentations...Imagine a soul having just departed this world thinking his righteousness has exceeded that of the Pharisees (after all, the Pharisees never took a shot @ godhood)...only to see the blinking mansion hotel-like light, "No Vacancy" over God's throne & no other divine throne available on any star, any planet, any universe.

The lack of Celestial Real Estate signs out front would make the lies of Gen. 3:5 & the false tries of Isaiah 14:12-14 would be instantaneously evident.

Heaven is Divided Into Two Kingdoms.
20. As there are infinite varieties in heaven, and no one society nor any one angel is exactly like any other [4.1], there are in heaven general, specific, and particular divisions. The general division is into two kingdoms, the specific into three heavens, and the particular into innumerable societies. Each of these will be treated of in what follows. The general division is said to be into kingdoms, because heaven is called the kingdom of God.

21. There are angels that receive more interiorly the Divine that goes forth from the Lord, and others that receive it less interiorly; the former are called celestial angels, and the latter spiritual angels. Because of this difference heaven is divided into two kingdoms, one called the Celestial Kingdom, the other the Spiritual Kingdom [4.2].

22. As the angels that constitute the celestial kingdom receive the Divine of the Lord more interiorly they are called interior and also higher angels; and for the same reason the heavens that they constitute are called interior and higher heavens [4.3]. They are called higher and lower, because these terms designate what is interior and what is exterior [4.4].

23. The love in which those are, who are in the celestial kingdom is called celestial love, and the love in which those are who are in the spiritual kingdom is called spiritual love. Celestial love is love to the Lord, and spiritual love is love towards the neighbor. And as all good pertains to love (for good to any one is what he loves) the good also of the other kingdom is called celestial, and the good of the other spiritual. Evidently, then, the two kingdoms are distinguished from each other in the same way as good of love to the Lord is distinguished from good of love towards the neighbor [4.5]. And as the good of love to the Lord is an interior good, and that love is interior love, so the celestial angels are interior angels, and are called higher angels.

24. The celestial kingdom is called also the Lords priestly kingdom, and in the Word His dwelling-place; while the spiritual kingdom is called His royal kingdom, and in the Word His throne. And from the celestial Divine the Lord in the world was called Jesus, while from the spiritual Divine He was called Christ.

25. The angels in the Lords celestial kingdom, from their more interior reception of the Divine of the Lord, far excel in wisdom and glory the angels that are in His spiritual kingdom; for they are in love to the Lord, and consequently are nearer and more closely conjoined to Him [4.6]. These angels are such because they have received and continue to receive Divine truths at once in their life, and not first in memory and thought, as the spiritual angels do. Consequently they have Divine truths written in their hearts, and they perceive them, and as it were see them, in themselves; nor do they ever reason about them whether they are true or not [4.7]. They are such as are described in Jeremiah:-

But the objections to this interpretation are obvious:
(a) There is no evidence that such a custom prevailed in the time of Paul.
(b) It cannot be believed that Paul would give countenance to a custom so senseless and so contrary to the Scripture, or that he would make it the foundation of a solemn argument.
(c) It does not accord with the strain and purpose of his argument. If this custom had been referred to, his design would have led him to say, What will become of them for whom others have been baptized? Are we to believe that they have perished?
(d) It is far more probable that the custom referred to in this opinion arose from an erroneous interpretation of this passage of Scripture, than that it existed in the time of Paul.

-Me again-
Paul is arguing FOR bodily Resurrection which means the Corinthians were arguing against it. If the Corinthians are practicing baptism of the dead, what is the point if there is no Resurrection of the body?

45
posted on 05/02/2008 1:51:03 PM PDT
by AppyPappy
(If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem.)

I don’t know a whole lot about the LDS Faith in general, but I have to say that I find this particular act to be deplorable, especially the fact that they have baptized not only plain old Christians and Jews, but also Holocaust victims; former Nazi officials, including Hitler; martyred Catholic saints, and so on.

I am not saying that innocent LDS members are deplorable; only those who allow and/or participate in these actions.

The Holocaust victims and martyred saints bother me the most, honestly, since they died as a direct result of their faith in God.

Question...If God honors the posthumous "baptisms", why would Catholics want to oppose God. If he does not honor these "baptisms", why should Catholics care what Mormons do?

The third Mormon "prophet" John Taylor--the same person who was in jail with Joseph Smith on charges of vandalizing/detroying a printing press...the same person who said that the LDS church would never backtrack on polygamy despite up to 1300 men being jailed in the years during (or surrounding) his Mormon presidency...also said:

"...we are the only people that know how to save our progenitors, how to save ourselves, and how to save our posterity in the celestial kingdom of God;...we in fact are the saviours of the world..." (Journal of Discourses, vol.6, p.163).

Of course, what Taylor was referencing was the ritual practicing of baptizing dead folks. (LDS even conjure up a vision of LDS priestholders going over on the other side & assisting with folks receiving the perverted Mormon gospel).

So I ask: Why would the Catholic church want to continue a practice that only continues to elevate Mormons in their own minds as "the saviours of the world?" (This is, pure & simple, idolatry to place themselves in the lone Savior role reserved for Jesus Christ).

As the book of Revelation makes it clear: Only "One" slain-One Redeemer (Rev. 5:9) was "worthy" to open the scrolls; there's only ONE Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

If proxy baptism would have been the route to world salvation, he would have done it himself. But he didn't. In fact, he rarely even baptized any living person:

I am thankful that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say that you were baptized into my name. (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don't remember if I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospelnot with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. Christ the Wisdom and Power of God. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (1 Cor. 1:14-18)

And that's what is telling...no crosses on Mormon facilities...But proxy baptism tanks in their temples...Ones that could be utilized 24/7 in dozens of temples if only the Mormon claim that the apostle John is still alive would come forward with all the names of the dead that you would think he'd have access to with a 2,000 year lifespan...but no...(same about 3 supposed ancient Nephite disciples still walking the earth)...but I guess proxy baptism just isn't a priority to them...)

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